1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to subsurface area contamination analysis systems, and more particularly to a smart data acquisition, processing and analysis tool used in the contamination area assessment and cleanup decision-making process.
2. Related Art
Large, complex environmentally impaired or contaminated sites present difficult and potentially expensive challenges for proper characterization and cleanup. Often extensive assessment efforts leave property owners and the engineering consultants with more questions than answers. Equally difficult is ascertaining the level of legal and financial liability associated with contaminated sites resulting in delays in restoring properties to economic viability. The two biggest questions being: “One, what liability does a property owner have as a result of environmental contamination?” and “Can we realistically cleanup this site within our budget?”
In today's technological climate, the availability of advanced sensors, telecommunications, computational power and visualization software has dramatically changed the way information is collected, decisions are made, and engineering systems are designed. For example, diagnostic tools such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) coupled with intelligent databases provide radiologists and surgeons with a detailed understanding of conditions within the human body prior to invasive surgery or treatments. Furthermore, coupling real time sensors with high speed telecommunications enables medical professionals to perform surgery using robotics remotely from as far away as another continent.
The above examples are just a few among the many instances of how today's technological advances have changed the medical and scientific community. These examples also significantly change the business economics of diagnosing medical conditions and providing state of the art treatment anywhere in the world, thus leveraging the knowledge and talent of a small number of experts. A similar concept can be applied to the assessment and cleanup of environmentally contaminated or impaired properties. Simply stated, more complete and detailed information provided simultaneously to all parties involved in the assessment, risk analysis, engineering design, and decision-making process of dealing with contaminated properties, leads to making better decisions, at a decreased risk and lower cost.
Conventionally, the investigation of most environmentally contaminated sites involves an extended process including the preparation of written work plans by an environmental consultant, approval by a property owner and regulatory agencies, field investigation, laboratory analyses, and written findings of results and recommendations. This process is extremely slow (months to years) and labor intensive. The outcomes are generally subject to much questioning resulting in a repetition of the process to obtain additional information. The burden of proof placed on the property owner and the owner's environmental consultant in competition with the high cost of data acquisition results in an incomplete assessment, increased risk as a result of incomplete information, and incorrectly designed and applied cleanup tools.
The problem is compounded by the high cost of data acquisition and correlation. Most data are collected by the intrusive sampling of soil cores, groundwater, and vapor from the subsurface using drill rigs and direct push technology. These processes typically yield 5-30 samples per day for subsequent analysis by field instruments or remote fixed laboratories. In consideration of the high cost of mobilizing heavy equipment and personnel to collect the samples, budget constraints often limit the total number and amount of samples obtained, and thus the completeness of the data set for a particular site.
Furthermore, samples are typically obtained at predetermined locations and at predetermined depths specified by a presumed level of understanding on the part of the environmental consultant of the field geology. Most often, inadequate consideration is given to modifying the sampling plan based on the actual observed field conditions. These factors compound the limited data set considering any additional samples required to adequately delineate any identified contamination are not included in the current budget or work plan.
A third compounding factor in adequately assessing or characterizing property with environmental contamination using the present technology is the difficulty of effectively obtaining samples representative of the contaminant concentrations. Current soil coring and groundwater sampling devices work reasonably well in respective ideal geological regions, but are extremely ineffective in regions of complex, heterogeneous soil conditions. Typically, saturated soil regions with large grain sizes such as sand, and those highly permeable to liquids are difficult to recover using state of the art soil coring tools. In a saturated soil region with small grain sizes such as clays and silty materials, low permeability makes groundwater samples difficult to obtain. An issue in unsaturated soil conditions is that it is difficult to get a full sample recovery, to prevent the loss of volatile compounds. Again, when samples from predetermined locations and depths are not fully recovered, the data set suffers and a level of uncertainty increases. [***]
Additional elements that affect the amount and quality of information obtained during site assessments for contamination include handling and shipping errors created, transportation delays, laboratory handling errors and delays, and multiple data formats created by laboratories and various site assessment tools. Often times insufficient data is obtained to address the interaction between geology and chemical contaminant migration and degradation.
Once data is obtained the data is frequently displayed in incompatible tabular formats or two-dimensional diagrams. These difficult-to-use data formats result in delays in report preparation, review, and the decision making process. The net result is a slow process, difficult to use, and with a high level of uncertainty. The slow process becomes the basis for pricing, insuring, and engineering design resulting in expensive, delayed, and ineffective restoration of environmentally damaged property.
Therefore, given the above, what is needed is a smart data system, tools, methods and computer program product for source area contamination data acquisition, analysis and processing that allows dozens of samples to be collected and analyzed daily, producing detailed vertical profiles that can be made into transects and 3-D images of the subsurface. Further, the needed system, method and computer program product should be low-cost, rugged and accurate to produce repeatable results when operated by persons of varying degrees of knowledge and skill. The needed system should provide near real-time information useful for decision making. The desired system should aggregate collective value of data obtained on multiple sites to progressively lower the cost of restoring contaminated properties over time.